None dare call it "acting out"

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An article of how children can be misdiagnosed merely for "acting out". http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mat ... out-part-i

I think somtimes they do take diagnosing kids with mental illnesses a bit too far, because obviously kids are not as mature as adults and will act out if they are frusterated or upset or want attention or whatever. However at the same time I know a lot of times I exibited some behavior that might be considered acting out when that was not the case.....I mean I knew the difference between intentionally acting out and not acting correctly and coming off that way.

Like for instance having AS I have sensorary issues, so an example might be if I consistantly complained about a light being too bright and would not let it go.....well of course someone experiancing simular discomfort would have been complaining just as much......the issue was most people do not experiance that sort of discomfort from a light. So yeah not all complaining or acting out or whatever can be pinned on 'bad behavior' for me though it was a lot of times so I ended up you know being punished for things that I could not control the way people expected and trying to dig really deep to find what I was doing so wrong when I should have maybe been understanding I had certain issues some people could not understand and it was not nessisarly wrong doing on my part.

So yes I think a lot of things are over-diagnosed in children and prescriptions are over-prescribed, but at the same time being under 18 does not mean you cannot have mental issues.

Very interesting article. I hear what this psychologist is saying (and I'm very, very concerned about both the tendency to pathologize normal behavior and the tendency to medicate it) but I also know that we struggled with my son's behavior, and finally discovered that he was on the spectrum. This discovery took FOR-EVER; we've been looking for help since he was 3, and just got a diagnosis at 10. (I suppose that some of this is because I avoided psychiatrists altogether because of my concerns.) It seems, though, that while the author moves away from labels and medication he moves towards an equally unhelpful trend: blaming the parents and/or the kids themselves.

I think many of these diagnoses, while probably overstated and mislabeled, are pointing to something real. I am uncomfortable with the large list of labels and the corresponding lists of medications, but I'm equally uncomfortable with saying "just get over it." Labelling kids "spoiled brats" or "juvenile delinquents" offers them just as little help to change their behavior as drugging them senseless.

I've no problem with medication as necessary - think of all the adolescents at risk for suicide - but a label and drugs aren't sufficient. Finding the root cause of the problem (and, as a parent, I was more than ready to take the blame and change - in fact, that's why I sought help in the first place) and teaching coping skills strike me as being a much better response.